A two-day forum, Southern Sweden - Kaliningrad 2002, which begins today in Kaliningrad should, according to the plans of the organisers, enable a broadening of many-sided collaboration. It will be led by the Swedish international development agency SIDA and the municipal education authority of the Kaliningrad Region AMOKO, with the partnership of the administration and Duma of the region.

As Oleg Shlik, President of AMOKO and head of the Bagrationovskii area of the region, told a Rosbalt correspondent, cooperation between the municipalities of the provinces of southern Sweden and the Russian exclave has been going on for seven years. The current forum has been brought about in order to assess the results of this work and decide its new direction, since, according to Oleg Shlik, it is less than satisfactory that even with the active development of social links, the partnership of municipalities in the region has in the last few years established little more than 25 businesses funded by Swedish capital.

More than 300 guests came from Sweden to the forum in Kaliningrad - official representatives of municipalities, businessmen, education and culture workers, arts groups. The forum's programme includes: plenary sessions and seminars on the issues of collaboration in the field of democratic development, healthcare and the environment, economics and trade, information technology etc.